A video of a Chinese teacher performing Hadiqa Kiani’s classic ‘Boohey Barian’ is going viral on social media platforms.
A video that has been circulating on various social media sites sees Ms Vicky – a music teacher at Pakistan Embassy College in Beijing – perform one of the most iconic tracks by the prolific singer.
The Chinese teacher chose the iconic ‘Boohey Barian’ by Kiani to perform for students and visitors at a cultural event organized at ‘Silk Road International Arts Centre’ to mark the 75th independence day of Pakistan earlier this week.
Pakistan Embassy College Beijing music teacher Ms. Vicky performing the iconic song ‘Buhe Bariyan’ of @Hadiqa_Kiani at the Pakistan Food and Cultural Festival organized by Embassy to mark 75th Independence of Pakistan at Silk Road International Arts Centre.@PkPublicDiplo pic.twitter.com/hnWOY3xLlM
— Moin ul Haque (@PakAmbChina) August 17, 2022
The video which was originally published by Pakistan’s ambassador to China, Moin ul Haque on the micro-blogging site, received a hearty response from social users who loved this cultural exchange between friendly neighbours.
Here is what the comments read on the viral video.
Moreover, the singer herself lauded the music teacher for her performance and revealed that the two had a chance to jam together earlier. She wrote, “I’ll always have so much love and respect for Vicky since we sang together in Beijing so many years ago.”
It is pertinent to mention that ‘Boohey Barian’ is a part of the Platinum-selling album ‘Roshni’ by Hadiqa Kiani, which came out in 1998 and has been copied multiple times in the past two decades. The track has been plagiarised by several Indian composers in the movies and music videos.
Fast News
Explosions and fires ripped through at least 17 locations in southern Thailand, authorities said, in what appeared to be multiple coordinated attacks that injured seven people.
The bombings and arson attacks happened on Wednesday after midnight and targeted convenience stores and a gas station across three provinces, lightly injuring at least seven, according to police and military statements.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far.
Provinces in southern Thailand along the border with Malaysia have seen a decades-long, low-level insurgency, in which the Thai government has battled shadowy groups seeking independence for the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and parts of Songkhla.
Disrupted peace talks
More than 7,300 people have been killed in the conflict since 2004, according to the Deep South Watch group, which monitors the violence.
Peace talks that began in 2013 have faced repeated disruptions.
Wednesday's attacks came after the Thai government earlier this year restarted discussions with the main insurgent group, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.
The government has said it is ready to talk to all groups.
READ MORE: How Patani-Malay Muslims refuse to be swallowed by Thailand's mainstream
Source: Reuters
Some western US states and Mexico must cut water usage to avoid a "catastrophic collapse" of the Colorado River, Washington officials have said as a historic drought bites.
Despite years of warnings, states that depend on the river have not managed to reduce their demands enough, and on Tuesday, the federal government said it was imposing cuts.
"Water use in the Basin must be reduced," said Tanya Trujillo, Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the Interior Department.
Arizona's allocation from the river will fall by 21 percent in 2023, while Nevada will get eight percent less. Mexico's allotment will drop by seven percent.
Negotiations over further reductions are creating tension among the states, especially as California, the largest user, has so far avoided cuts triggered by low reservoir levels.
California, the biggest user of the river's water and the most populous of the western states, will not be affected next year.
More than two decades of well below-average rainfall have left the river, the lifeblood of the western United States, at critically low levels, as the human-caused climate crisis worsens the natural drought cycle.
READ MORE: Californians use more water as drought worsens in US state
Reduced rain and higher temperatures
The Colorado River rises in the Rocky Mountains and snakes its way through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California and northern Mexico, where it empties into the Gulf of California.
It is fed mainly by snow caps on mountains at high altitudes, which melts slowly throughout the warmer months.
Scorching temperatures and reduced melting snow in the spring have lowered the water volume flowing from the Rocky Mountains, where the river originates before it snakes 2,334 kilometres southwest and into the Gulf of California.
As a consequence, there is not as much water in the river which supplies tens of millions of people and countless acres of farmland.
Federal officials asked for reduced usage of 2 to 4 million acre-feet of water per year, a reduction of 15 percent to 30 percent in the coming year.
Because the states failed to respond to a federal ultimatum to figure out how to cut their water use, they could face even deeper cuts that the government has said are needed to prevent reservoirs from falling so low they cannot be pumped.
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton said the additional 15 percent reduction is necessary to ensure that water deliveries and hydroelectric power are not disrupted.
She emphasised the partnership between federal officials and their counterparts in the seven states and Mexico but repeatedly declined to say how much time the states will have to reach the deal she requested in June.
Hydrodams at risk
For years, cities and farms have consumed more water from the river than what flows through it, depleting its reservoirs and raising questions about how it will be divided as water becomes more scarce.
The water level at Lake Mead, the nation's largest man-made reservoir, has plummeted so low that it's currently less than a quarter full and getting dangerously close to a point where not enough water would flow to produce hydropower at the Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border.
Already, extraordinary steps have been taken this year to keep water in Lake Powell, the other large Colorado River reservoir, which sits upstream of Lake Mead and straddles the Arizona-Utah border. Water from the lake runs through Glen Canyon Dam, which produces enough electricity to power between 1 million and 1.5 million homes each year.
After water levels at Lake Powell reached levels low enough to threaten hydropower production, federal officials said they would hold back some water to ensure the dam could still produce energy. That water would normally flow to Lake Mead.
READ MORE: California warns of water cuts as drought worsens in western US
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
Walking through their orchard on Lathcoats Farm, the apples on many trees have been visibly scorched, their skin browned in parts, the flesh underneath turned corky. A significant proportion of the farm's harvest this year has been unsellable.
A record-breaking heat wave in July literally baked the apples on their branches, but Philip Taylor, who runs the farm with his nephew, now has bigger things to worry about. The soil under the trees is cracking with dryness -- they've had such little rain this spring and summer. Even this past winter, when rainwater typically stores up in the soil to keep it moist for months, just wasn't wet enough.
England last month had its driest July since 1935, and the southern part of the country, including Lathcoats Farm, received just 17% of its average rainfall for the month, according to the UK Met office. No meaningful amount of rain is on the horizon either.
Water levels in reservoirs are dropping fast and rivers are drying up. Even the River Thames that flows through London has shrunk, its first 5 miles dried and disappeared. Thirteen rivers that the Environment Agency monitors are at their lowest levels ever recorded.
But for farmers of thirsty crops like apples, there is no replacement for rain straight from the sky.
"Growing apples is not going to work if we have summers like this every year," Taylor told CNN at his farm, a 40-mile drive northeast of London. "Our access to water at the moment is purely from the mains. To give apple trees enough water to produce a decent crop would be way too expensive."
Luckily, Taylor has other means of income. His family has transformed the farm into an attractive place to visit, with a café and a farm shop that sells juice made from Lathcoats' apples, fresh produce, organic bread and cakes. People also come here to pick their own fruit, making for a fun day out, for young children in particular.
He and his nephew sell soft fruits as well, like berries and plums, which can be watered with irrigation. But even that water is becoming scarce, and they can't afford to put in some of the measures bigger farms do to shield from extreme weather.
"So as far as what we're doing about it, well, we're just sort of worrying," Taylor said. "It may be that we just go away from growing apples. Certainly, we will consider which varieties we might plant going forward. Some would be more resilient in these temperatures than some of the traditional English ones that we grow now."
Hosepipe bans are forcing people to find less wasteful ways of replenishing their gardens and washing their cars. Filling up a paddling pool, as some English people do on hot days, is banned in many areas as well.
But it's not just consumption that's a problem, or even the lack of rain -- the United Kingdom's infrastructure is several hundred of years old and is particularly leaky. In England and Wales, 3.1 billion liters of water -- enough to fill 1,240 Olympic-sized pools -- is lost through leaks every single day.
"There's a real lack of respect for the water that we've got, this really, quite precious resource," Hannah Cloke, a climate scientists and hydrologist at the University of Reading, told CNN. "We drink it, we use it to grow our food, and yet we are still letting it leak all over the place. That's one of the biggest issues. The water companies are just letting it leak -- they've really dropped the ball there."
Water UK, which represents 12 major water companies across the country, said that a lot had already been done to plug the leaks.
"Companies have increasingly been putting innovation and technology at the heart of these efforts," the organization said in a statement to CNN. "Intelligent networks, smart sensors, satellite technology and drones are all part of the armory that's being deployed to detect and fix leaks faster than ever."
The companies represented by Water UK are also planning to invest £14billion ($17 billion) in reservoirs and schemes to move water around the country, "enough to supply 10 million people," so it can be saved for particularly dry times like this one.
Another issue is that only around half of the homes in England and Wales have water meters, which allow companies to charge customers based on their actual usage. The rest just pay what the companies estimate a home of their size might use.
The wider UK has the highest per capita water consumption across Europe, using up more than 140 liters a day. Metering has proven to reduce water consumption by more than 20%. Without them, there's little incentive to cut down on use.
Cloke said that water companies might not want to expand metering, which could eat into their profits, assuming people would be more careful with their consumption.
"Water companies will want to make money from selling water, so it's in their interest to keep selling, even when there are restrictions in place," Cloke said. "We haven't got this quite right, but water companies don't have the incentive to do the right thing, environmentally speaking, and that goes for pollution and flooding, as well as droughts and leakage. It has been very much a case of 'Let's just carry on, business as usual.'"
The UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology on Wednesday warned that drought conditions, which are now impacting much of the country, could last until at least October. The center only looks a few months ahead, and there are worries that the country could have a second, consecutive dry winter as well, even roll into next year.
That could be catastrophic, not just for households, but also for food security, already undermined by Russia's war in Ukraine and drought in other parts of Europe. It would also push food prices up even higher, fueling inflation that is already painful for millions of people in the country, as mortgage rates and rents go up, and energy prices soar.
As Taylor told CNN from his farm, it's been one thing after another.
"Everything's happened at once," he said. "You could start with Brexit and go on to Ukraine, and then Covid. And now climate change is really starting to hurt."
On the other side of London, down south, the English county of Kent is known as the Garden of England for its green rolling hills, its fertile land and orchards that supply the nation with strawberries, apples and pears. It's also a place that attracts those with green thumbs, who move here and cultivate large gardens in their homes.
David and Margaret Miller have lived in their home in the Kentish town of Edenbridge for around 40 years. The couple showed CNN photographs of what their garden once looked like -- a lush green oasis of geraniums, azaleas, dahlias, cannas and echinacea plants. They also brought out several certificates to show their accolades from the local Edenbridge in Bloom gardening competition, which they have won multiple times.
Now their front lawn is dried out and brown from the lack of rain. Some of their dahlias haven't blossomed at all in the heat, and the pink echinacea flowers have completely withered, their petals drooping.
The couple have made the decision to try and just water the flowers and plants they care for the most. Even though they aren't subject to a hosepipe ban yet, they have switched to watering cans "to do the right thing," Margaret Miller said. That's made what was once a 30-minute job twice as long. In this heat, sometimes they need to water their select few plants twice a day just to keep them alive.
It's not an easy job for David, who is 84 and suffering from vertigo, or Margaret, 80, who has problems with her hip. And their garden is everything to them. A hobby and a sanctuary that got them through the worst of the pandemic.
"When you see them all withering in the heat, you feel sad," said Margaret Miller of her plants. "Because, over a period of time, you have nurtured them."
She agrees that people should conserve water as a precious resource, but she's frustrated that her garden has to suffer while the country loses so much in leaks every day.
"I feel quite cross about it, because they then come up with a reason like 'Oh, we've got a drainage system that dates back several hundred of years, and it's not the water companies' fault.' But I would have thought, in this day and age, they've got equipment that they can tell where these leaks are and fix them," she said. "I'm sure they're making plenty of money, so why don't they plow it back in? It does make me cross."
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Heat wave duration records could be broken in the Pacific Northwest this week and authorities are expanding capacity at some cooling centers as temperatures near triple digits are forecast to extend into the weekend.
“For the next several days through Saturday we’re going to be within a few degrees of 100 every day,” said Colby Neuman, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Portland, Oregon.
Temperatures in Oregon’s largest city are forecast to soar to 101 degrees Fahrenheit (38.3 Celsius) again on Friday. On Tuesday, Portland set daily record 102 F (38.9 C).
Seattle on Tuesday also reported a new record daily high of 94 F (34.4 C). The heat spell was forecast to last into Saturday in western Washington as well.
The National Weather Service has extended the excessive heat warnings from Thursday through Saturday evening.
The duration of the heat wave puts Portland “in the running” for tying its longest streak of six consecutive days of 95 F (35 C) or higher, Neuman said.
Climate change is fueling longer heat waves in the Pacific Northwest, a region where weeklong heat spells were historically rare, according to climate experts.
On Wednesday, the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office said at least two people have died from suspected hyperthermia during the heat wave, KGW reported. One death occurred in Portland on Monday, the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office said. The state medical examiner’s office said the heat-related death designation is preliminary and could change after further investigation.
Heat-related 911 calls in Portland have tripled in recent days, from an estimated eight calls on Sunday to 28 calls on Tuesday, said Dan Douthit, a spokesperson for the city’s Bureau of Emergency Management. Most calls involved a medical response, Douthit added.
Multnomah County said more people have been visiting emergency departments for heat-related symptoms.
Emergency department visits “have remained elevated since Sunday,” the county said in a statement. “In the past three days, hospitals have treated 13 people for heat illness, when they would normally expect to see two or three.”
People working or exercising outside, along with older people, were among those taken to emergency departments, the statement added.
People in Portland’s iconic food cart industry are among those who work outside. Many food trucks have shut down as sidewalks sizzle.
Rico Loverde, the chef and owner of the food cart Monster Smash Burgers, said the temperature inside his cart is generally 20 degrees hotter than the outdoor temperature, making it 120 F (48.9 C) inside his tiny business this week.
Loverde said he closes down if it reaches above 95 F (35 C) because his refrigerators overheat and shut down. Last week, even with slightly cooler temperatures in the mid-90s, Loverde got heat stroke from working in his cart for hours, he said.
“It hurts; it definitely hurts. I still pay my employees when we’re closed like this because they have to pay the bills too, but for a small business it’s not good,” he said Tuesday.
Multnomah County said its four emergency overnight cooling shelters were at half capacity on Tuesday with 130 people spending the night. But anticipating more demand, officials decided to expand capacity at the four sites to accommodate nearly 300 people.
William Nonluecha, who lives in a tent in Portland, sought out shade with some friends as the temperature soared Wednesday afternoon. Nonluecha was less than a minute’s walk from a cooling shelter set up by local authorities but wasn’t aware it was open. He said the heat in his tent was almost unbearable.
His friend Mel Taylor, who was homeless last year but now has transitional housing, said during a record-breaking heat wave last summer a man in a tent near his died from heat exhaustion and no one realized it. He’s afraid the same thing might happen this summer.
“He was in his tent for like a week and the smell, that’s how they figured out that he was dead,” Taylor said. “It’s sad.”
Residents and officials in the Northwest have been trying to adjust to the likely reality of longer, hotter heat waves following last summer’s deadly “heat dome” weather phenomenon that prompted record temperatures and deaths.
About 800 people died in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia during that heat wave, which hit in late June and early July. The temperature at the time soared to an all-time high of 116 F (46.7 C) in Portland and smashed heat records in cities and towns across the region. Many of those who died were older and lived alone.
Other regions of the U.S. often experience temperatures of 100 degrees. But in regions like the Pacific Northwest, people are not as acclimated to the heat and are more susceptible to it, said Craig Crandall, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
“There’s a much greater risk for individuals in areas such as the Northwest to have higher instances of heat-related injuries and death,” Crandall said.
Officials in Seattle and Portland on Tuesday issued air quality advisories expected to last through Saturday, warning that smog may reach levels that could be unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Farther south, the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory on Wednesday for western Nevada and northeast California that is set to last from the late Thursday morning until Saturday night. Across the region, near record daytime high temperatures will range from 99 to 104 degrees F (37.22 to 40 C).
———
AP reporter Gabe Stern contributed from Carson City, Nevada.
———
Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter.
